A Captaincy of Your Own
by A.D. Fields
Summary: Canon story with a few changes. Andrew Dixon, the Chief Engineer on the I-401 and longtime friend of Chihaya Gunzou, gets the wish he's always longed for. Becoming a captain of a vessel...however, he doesn't quite know what he's getting into.
1. I-401

**A/N:** Arpeggio fandom! Greetings! I have been watching this anime for all of 3 days and can fully say that I love it! Except for the second movie (which brought me to tears for the second time in the series) I loved all of it.

Now, I bring to you a cannon story, but following a personal OC that has treated me very well in the past.

Anyways, I'll stop talking now. If you like the story, leave me a follow or a favorite and if you're feeling especially generous, maybe a review?

Have a great day!

* * *

 **I-401**

* * *

"Gunzou, how's it going my friend?" Andrew asked as he sat down with his lunch tray in the cafeteria of the Maritime Institute of Technology.

"Good Andrew. Yourself?" he asked.

"Me? Eh, you know, the usual" Andrew shrugged, before digging into his food.

Another young man in the school uniform, but wearing a strange mask came up to the two and sat down.

"Hey guys" he said simply, to which both responded with "Hey Sou."

All were classmates at the Institute, and their circle of friends had two more members who were making up tests over the lunch break.

However, while Gunzou and Sou were Japanese, Andrew was not.

Standing at 6ft tall, he was by no means, a small person. Short brown hair, and piercing blue eyes, with no significant facial hair, and a permanent neutral expression marring his face were his features.

He had been a transfer student from the young age of 5, managing to get across the Pacific Ocean before they mystic Fleet of Fog had completed their blockade of all merchant trade across the oceans, and shooting down all satellites and aircraft.

The Fleet of Fog. A naval force that had appeared out of nowhere in order to blockade all ports around the world, destroy any commercial shipping and seemingly to bleed humanity to a slow death.

Nobody knew anything about the United States, even something as small as if it even existed, so complete was the destruction of all means of communication.

The naval forces of humanity had come together for a final stand against the Fog, but they had been utterly decimated, with over 600,000 sailors and airmen killed as a result.

All three of them could remember the small cadre of ships that returned to Yokosuka, all badly damaged and struggling to stay afloat.

Andrew's father had been killed during the Great Naval Battle, and his mother had died during a Fog shore bombardment which had hit the shipyard where she was working as a safety inspector.

"So, you got picked to go on that trip to the hanger eh? What was inside there?" Sou asked after a few minutes of quiet eating.

"Sorry" Gunzou replied with a small smile "It was top secret."

"Well we can always guess" Andrew stated "It was probably a new weapon to fight the Fog."

 _"_ _Oh if only you guys actually knew"_ Gunzou thought, smiling to himself this time.

What was in the warehouse was a captured Fog submarine, I-401.

It had surrendered peacefully, but all weapons and commands had been locked out so the navy spent seven years trying to reactivate the ship.

And he had done it by merely touching the hull.

All that wasted time, and all it took was a simple touch.

Gunzou regarded his friends, quickly realizing that he would never be able to tell them what happened and it would be best to just forget the whole incident.

Andrew looked back on his time in Japan with a small smile.

Sure, it wasn't Canada, but he didn't remember a whole lot about his home country because of how young he was.

Here, he had made friends, and he wouldn't trade them for the world.

* * *

"Hey Andrew! Wake up" a voice said, causing the mentioned young man to break out of his thoughts.

"Iori, I apologize" Andrew replied, snapping out of it and returning his full attention to the engineering console in front of him.

"You must've been thinking awful hard about something" she chided, handing him a cup of coffee.

"Just thinking about old times, back at the school. Before all this" he murmured.

"You want me to take the console for awhile? Go get some sleep and a meal?" Iori asked.

"That would be excellent" Andrew replied with a smile "Everything's still running like a top. As usual. Core readings are all in the green."

He stood up and stretched, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair as Iori sat down.

Much like their Captain, Andrew wore a suit as well.

A slate grey, 3-piece suit, with a white shirt and a blue tie, and black dress shoes completed his outfit.

Most of the crew wore casual clothes, with Sou being the next most formal to him in a turtleneck sweater and jeans, his ever-present mask still in place.

There were two other crew members, Shizuka and Kyouhei were in charge of sensors and weapons respectively.

Iori was the engineering officer, and Andrew was the Chief Engineer, but they both basically did the same job, ensuring that the engine kept going and that all systems were functioning normally.

Sou was the first mate, or in reality the Executive Officer on board, and Gunzou was the Captain.

They had quite a diverse group, but they worked very well together, especially since they had been able to sink the battleship Hyuuga, though it was exhausting for everyone.

There was also the Mental Model for I-401, a girl named Iona on board.

She requested that everyone call her by name instead of hull number, which was easy to adapt to.

Everyone was slightly nervous to come aboard after they had abandoned the academy to set foot on a Fog ship, but Gunzou had assured them that everything would be fine.

And everything was fine, there was nothing wrong with being aboard Iona at all, she was perfectly safe in all respects.

Stopping off at the small mess hall onboard, Andrew made himself a sandwich and put it on the only table along with his half empty coffee mug.

Their current orders were to proceed off the Saga Prefecture and ensure that the launch of an SSTO spacecraft went off without a hitch.

Apparently, someone thought that the Fog would try to interrupt it so they made the decision to contract in the I-401 for additional protection.

However, they had a few hours until they reached the patrol area, so Iona had a majority of the systems well in hand while people were resting.

"I'd best get some rack time before this all kicks off" Andrew muttered before clearing his mug and plate away, and heading off to his small cabin.

* * *

Andrew awoke to the blaring alarm signaling a call to general quarters, indicating that they were indeed going into battle.

As Iori had everything in engineering under control, he quickly made his way to the control room, and grabbed the tablet reserved for coordinating damage control on the vessel.

Sure, nanomaterials may have comprised the hull and systems, but if Iona was busy in combat, he could at least handle damage control to give her a little bit of leeway.

"Contact with one Nagara light cruiser. They've destroyed both Japanese ships protecting the SSTO" Shizuka reported as the lights onboard dimmed way down to combat levels.

Iona went through the specifications of the ship, and Gunzou had Kyouhei load the torpedoes that they had decided on before into the specified tubes.

"Tube 7, launch corrosive torpedo!" came the order from the captain, quickly followed by "Snapshot tubes 1 and 2. All stop. Dive deep."

I-401 had been detected and the Fog ship had fired two torpedoes in response to the one that was already fired.

There was a distant explosion as one torpedo was intercepted, but the other hit the Klein field that Iona deployed, shaking the crew around.

"5 seconds to torpedo impact" Kyouhei reported, keeping a close eye on the weapons track and counting down the seconds.

The Fog ship attempted to deploy its Klein field, but it was far too late.

The torpedo hit, corroding a large hole into the midships of the cruiser, before causing the ship to violently explode.

"Surface the boat" Gunzou ordered, and on the way up, he said "Andrew, you know what to do now."

"With pleasure captain" the other man replied with a smile.

Andrew was already up top when Iona came up from the control room, standing aft of the bridge and watching as the SSTO took off from its launch platform.

"Do you feel bad? Sinking another member of the Fog?" Andrew asked, spreading a tarpaulin on the upper deck before he grabbed a paintbrush and a photograph.

"I'm following the order of my captain" Iona replied simply.

He couldn't help but chuckle at the response. It was so calculated.

Gunzou came up and began talking with her, so Andrew returned to the task at hand, which was painting a kill marking of the cruiser alongside the one they had from Hyuuga.

The captain had wanted to keep a recorded tally, but he thought it was too boring to just have it recorded digitally in Iona's databanks, so he had brought back the art of painting kill markings on the ship.

With Iona unable to make that minute of an alteration to her colour, the task had fallen to Andrew, who was the best artist in their small group.

Finishing the task in about half an hour, he looked up to see Gunzou and Iona still chatting away.

"Captain, kill marking complete. It'll take about fifteen minutes for it to finish drying so you might not want to dive unless we're gonna die" he said, chuckling lightly "But I'll still be pissed at you for wrecking this one."

"You'll be mad if I ruin any of your markings" Gunzou replied, rolling his eyes as Andrew finished cleaning up.

"You're darn right! I work hard on those" Andrew grumbled, before turning away and going to an access hatch "I'm gonna go see if Iori wants a break."

Back down in engineering, Andrew and Iori were chatting about the battle.

"We should be putting into Nagasaki pretty soon. Another hour or so" Iori stated after Andrew had already sat down.

"Anything else that I need to know about?" he asked, looking over the display in front of him.

"Not that I can think of" she replied, tapping her chin in thought "If you need something, you know where to find me."

With a jaunty wave, Iori walked out of engineering, leaving Andrew alone in the peace of the engine room.

* * *

True to Iona's word, they pulled into Nagasaki a little under an hour after Nagara had been sunk offshore.

"I need to go and talk to our client. I should be back soon. Be ready to go, 10 minutes notice for power" Gunzou said as he got out of his chair and walked towards the ladder going into the sail.

"Roger. 10 minutes notice" Andrew replied in the engine room, punching a few commands in to drop the system into a standby mode as he stood up and stretched.

Heading to the control room, he found everyone still there, except for Iona, who had disappeared somewhere.

"So what do you think the captain went to talk about?" Kyouhei asked, to which the group shrugged their shoulders.

"Who knows. It could be our next job too" Sou replied, getting out of his chair and walking around to stand by the sensor station.

Gunzou came back within fifteen minutes of leaving, and everybody was still shooting the breeze in the control room when he came back with Iona in tow.

"To your stations! We have a new job. Set course for Yokosuka" he ordered, easily sliding into his chair as everyone returned to their stations.

Andrew hurried to the engine room and typed in the restart commands and within a minute they had full power ready to go.

"Captain, engines are ready. We can go when you're satisfied" Andrew reported through the active communication link that was always open to engineer.

"Excellent. Thank you" Gunzou replied simply.

"Course laid in for Yokosuka. Estimated time of arrival 26 hours from now" Iona said over the ship intercom.

"Are we expecting trouble?" Andrew asked aloud to the panel.

"We're not sure, but I do know that we'll be ready for anything. No matter what it is" Gunzou replied through the comm link.

20 hours later, they were all nearly ready to eat their words.

The alarm for general quarters reverberated through the hull, rousing any sleeping members, and pushing everyone (excluding Andrew who was on shift in engineering) to the control room to figure out what was going on.

And it was just about the worst thing that they could have prepared for.

"So…. captain…. are we actually prepared to take on a heavy cruiser?" Kyouhei questioned as everyone stood silently in the control room looking at the object that had halted their progress and caused the launch of seven active decoys.

"Takao is merely a stepping stone to get to Yokosuka" Gunzou informed him "All hands, man battle stations."


	2. A Fight to Remember

**A/N:** Greetings all! It took me a week to pound this out, and I probably could've been ready with it yesterday had I not been trapped at work on Saturday standing a duty watch on my ship.

Anyways, this is chapter 2 of the story, and I'm sure most of you have figured out where this will eventually end up, but if you have, please don't spoil it for others.

No reviews last chapter so that makes me kinda sad. Remember, you can leave a review, and there's a 99.43% chance that I will respond to it.

Enough talk, enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

 **A Fight to Remember**

* * *

"Damn I wonder what's going on out there." Andrew muttered as he let his eyes scan the gauges showing the condition of the engine onboard Iona.

They had made several speed and depth changes, and keeping an eye on the depth gauge though, he finally surmised that the boat was heading to the surface.

"Andrew, how long can you give me combat level energy?" Gunzou asked, his face popping up on his panel.

"If I really push it, probably five minutes." he replied, rubbing his chin before pausing "You aren't actually thinking about attacking a heavy cruiser, are you?"

"That's exactly what we're doing. Make sure you're ready when we need that power." Gunzou stated, looking the young man in the eye.

"Piece of cake captain." Andrew mused, grinning slightly.

 _"_ _Alright, so we're all crazy. Attacking a heavy cruiser"_ he thought, turning his attention to the panel in front of him and getting all the systems ready for a jolt of power to come through.

Nothing happened for a few moments, other than the steady hum of the engine and the ticking of the depth gauge as they got nearer and nearer to the surface.

That was, until a massive shockwave resonated through the hull of the boat, causing everyone to grab onto something lest they be knocked about.

The depth needle immediately nosedived as the submarine dropped like a rock towards the bottom of the ocean.

"Have we been hit?" Andrew asked himself, fingers deftly scanning the pages and silencing the multitude of alarms that had sounded.

The only alarm that caused concern was that the Klein Field was nearly critical.

Finally, the vessel settled on the bottom of the seabed once again, coming to rest with a soft bump.

"Andrew, we took a near miss from a super gravity cannon. How are the systems?" Gunzou asked, his head popping up on the panel in front of him.

"Well, our propulsion is all green across the board, but the Klein Field took it pretty hard. It's nearly critical." he reported, fingers still tapping away.

Gunzou and the other crew chatted away in the control room as he worked, readying the ship for whatever was to come next.

All he heard was Gunzou saying "Iona, we're going to use the loot from Hyuuga."

"Woah hold on!" Andrew shouted, his head popping up to glare at Gunzou "We've only run simulations with it. I don't know if that thing won't blow this boat apart!"

"How about it Iona?" Gunzou asked, directing his question to the mental model.

"It will be fine…I think." she replied.

"I think." Andrew muttered, rolling his eyes "How very…heartwarming to hear a solid maybe."

Iori had much the same look, and they both shared a nervous glance.

"The captain is a gambler, what else will you do?" Kyouhei chucked at Andrew, lacing his fingers behind his head "He might not look the part, but he likes to take a roll of the dice."

At once, the engines powered up and all systems came back online as the depth gauge began to creep upwards once again.

"Alright Gunzou." Andrew sighed "I'll have it ready to go. Not like I have much of a choice, right?"

A weak smile came to his lips as he cut the video feed before focusing on the console in front of him and beginning to input the necessary commands for their secret to come to light.

The shudder of shifting plates was unmistakable, even as far aft as the engine room, and it continued for a moment before they locked in place.

"I want to watch this too Gunzou, put a video feed on my screen, would you?" Andrew asked, finalizing the firing sequence as they once again approached the surface.

Nothing was replied, but a small window with their target popped up on his screen.

"Ah. A Takao class. So it's a possibility of one of four ships. _Takao_ , _Atago_ , _Maya_ or the _Chōkai._ Wonder which one it is," he trailed off as they continued upwards.

Speed increased dramatically to half, and engineering began to heat up slightly as the usual sounds of torpedoes being launched reverberated through the hull.

The muffled sounds of explosions reached deep into the ocean, as all the torpedoes launched were destroyed by the ASW warheads launched by _Takao_.

"Ugh, at this rate, we'll run out of munitions before the fight is over." Andrew muttered, wiping the accumulated sweat off his brow.

Through his view, he watched as the two corrosive torpedoes were wiped out by more of the enemy's warheads, and then he saw something strange.

 _Takao_ changed bearing once again, and opened its launch tubes midships and on the aft end.

"Holy crap!" Andrew whispered in rapt horror "That's gotta be like…a hundred missiles."

The boat immediately shuddered as power was increased to full and the floats were blown, causing a fast ascension to the surface of the water.

Fastening his seatbelt, Andrew was rocked by the quick surface, and then watched in amazement as the ocean literally parted in front of the submarine.

 _"_ _So this is the power of the supergravity cannon"_ he thought, sweat dripping into his eyes as the temperature in the engine room continued to steadily climb.

"Would you look at that." he then mused as the seas parted under the heavy cruiser, revealing what looked like an old U-boat clinging to its hull "So that's the trump card they had."

"Getting a little hot in here Gunzou." Andrew sing-songed through the shared comm "Wouldn't mind if you hurried this up a bit, unless you want a well done Chief Engineer."

What looked like arcs of lightning began zapping around inside of engineering, as Andrew worked feverishly to ensure none of the critical systems took a major jolt from the system, and from the weapon that was about to fire.

If he had been watching the screen, he would have seen the mental model of _Takao_ , however, keeping the vessel from imploding due to an unequal distribution of energy was more important to him.

"Firing Supergravity cannon." he heard Iona issue over the speakers, before a massive concussion shook the boat, and now watching the screen, he saw the beam quickly head towards the Fog ship, before a bright, red light appeared when it was hit.

The massive draw of power stopped at once, as the ship slowly returned to normal, the engine room beginning to cool, which coincided with Andrew looking over the damage pages to see if anything had suffered after firing the weapon.

* * *

The door slid open and Iori walked in with a smile on her face.

"Great job in here." she said, high fiving him "Go up top to get some fresh air and get outta this heat."

"Much obliged." Andrew replied with a small smile, putting on his jacket but leaving it unbuttoned.

"Oh, and Gunzou wants you to get the paint!" she called, right before the doors closed.

"Of course he does." Andrew muttered to nobody as he continued to walk through the sub, stopping off at the paint locker to grab some paint, brushes, and a tarpaulin before making his way into the conning tower and out onto the deck.

What he saw though, was not what he had expected.

Iona had slowly motored up, and pulled alongside the enemy cruiser.

"Uhhh…." was all Andrew could say as he looked up at the intimidating vessel and its equally intimidating blood red paint scheme.

"Gunzou what the hell are you thinking?" he all but shouted to the heavens.

"What? Takao has a weapons lock on. She's completely disabled." Gunzou replied, scaring Andrew with his sudden appearance with Iona hot on his heels.

"Jesus!" Andrew yelled, a hand covering his chest to sooth his heart "Don't scare me like that. It's not nice."

Gunzou chuckled and even Iona couldn't help but let a small smile slip onto her face.

"Alright Andrew." Gunzou said once he finished laughing "Dig deep into that history part of your brain and tell me all you can about the old Takao class cruisers."

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up," Andrew muttered, before sighing and launching into a tirade.

"The Takao class was made up of four ships. _Takao_ , _Atago_ , _Maya_ and _Chōkai_. They were launched between May 1930 and April 1931. All four were sunk eventually, with _Takao_ being scuttled by British forces in 1946.

"Length of 203 meters, 9,850t at a standard load, 15,490t at full load, 20 meters beam, draft of 6.3 meters. Driven by 4 shafts, speed was up to 35 knots with 132,000 shaft horsepower.

"Final armaments for the flagship _Takao_ were ten 203mm guns in five double turrets, three fore and two aft, four dual purpose 127mm guns with two guns per mount, sixty-six 25mm anti-aircraft guns in single, double, and triple mountings, four 13.2mm machine guns, sixteen 24-inch torpedo tubes, mounted midships with 8 tubes per side, 4 per launcher, 2 launchers per side. And lastly, depth charges."

Gunzou couldn't help but applaud.

"You see, all those books that I read weren't totally useless." Andrew grinned, sticking out his tongue.

"The Takao class were some of my favorite ships though. Along with the Kongo class battleships. Both had such nice lines and an amazing mix of firepower and beauty," he continued, looking the enemy ship over from bow to stern, admiring the design.

All at once, a loud foghorn broke the peace, and it was from the ship in front of them all.

Iona giggled, as Gunzou and Andrew looked on in confusion.

"I think _Takao_ heard what you said Andrew." she simply stated, as another young woman jumped down to the deck of the cruiser.

She appeared to be in her late teens, with cyan hair reaching down to her waist, and deep blue eyes.

She wore a simple white dress, with black stockings and white high heels, and had a necklace of some sort on.

She also had a light dusting of pink on her cheeks as well.

"Ah…it would appear so." Andrew replied flatly to Iona, as Gunzou's chuckles turned into outright laughter.

He couldn't help but laugh at himself.

It should've clicked a lot sooner that all Fog ships were sentient, just look at Iona.

She came to the railing of the vessel and stared down at them.

"And just who are you?" she asked, leaning on the railing and directing the question at the young man with the paintbrush.

"Andrew Dixon." he replied easily "Chief Engineer aboard I-401, second to the engineering officer."

"And you're doing what exactly?" she questioned, watching as he dipped the brush he had in a can of grey paint.

"Painting a kill marking on Iona of that sub you had skulking about under your hull" Andrew returned, beginning to focus on the task at hand.

He continued his work, stepping back and grinning as he proudly admired the newest addition to the tally that was sure to grow larger over time.

"So what else does he do other than paint kills and work in engineering?" he heard the mental model ask Gunzou.

"Well as you saw earlier, he's our resident history expert, and he's an aspiring captain as well." Gunzou replied after a moment of thought.

"I wouldn't go that far Gunzou." Andrew mused, packing up the painting supplies.

"Face it Andrew, you were groomed to be a captain, your father was, as was your grandfather. All you need is your own ship. Iori would be able to hold down engineering on her own if you left, and you know that." Gunzou shot back.

"Maybe" Andrew muttered as he went below to stow the gear he had pulled from the paint locker.

* * *

By the time he appeared back on deck, they were steaming slowly alongside the Fog cruiser.

"I never got your name!" he called out when Iona started to pull away.

The young woman was still leaning on the railing and looked down at him.

"Takao." She simply replied, before jumping to a perch on the second turret and sitting down on top of it.

He chuckled lightly to himself.

Just their luck to run into the flagship cruiser of that class.

"Like I said before," he muttered, sure that nobody could hear him "The Takao class was a beautiful ship series."

The blaring of a foghorn was heard in the distance as he went below to get some rest before they pulled into Yokosuka, and he couldn't help but laugh.

Thankfully, the rest of the trip to Yokosuka went without a hitch, and in no time at all, they were all standing on Iona's deck looking up at the massive wall that surrounded the port.

"Personally, I think it just makes people feel secure." Andrew muttered to Iori who was beside him "A Fog ship could blast through that no problem."

"But that's never going to happen, right?" Iori asked, looking at him as the massive gates in front of the submarine opened to admit them to the inner harbor.

"I wouldn't think so" he replied quietly, not knowing just how wrong he was.


End file.
